When Queensland’s new youth mental health facility opens in early 2020, the state will finally have the mental health facilities it needs, its former chief psychiatrist told reporters on Monday afternoon.
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However, that will be six years after the previous LNP government closed the Barrett Adolescent Centre at Wacol in January 2014.
Until it closed, the Barrett Adolescent Centre was Queensland’s only mental health facility for adolescents that offered a live-in facility.
Construction of its purpose-built replacement $27 million mental health facility for adolescents at Prince Charles Hospital finally began on Monday afternoon, 11 months after it was promised work would start.
It could also provide care for increasingly serious cases of cyber bullying “on a more general level”, according to Queensland Health mental health branch executive director John Allan.
“What we know is that as young people grow up their self-esteem and their personal development can be greatly affected by abuse," he said.
“So I would anticipate that in the future we will be treating a lot more people who would have had that kind of experience (cyber bullying) – at a more general level because of the readiness of social media.”
The new 12-bed centre, which will have a full-time daily school, will include bedrooms, communal spaces, a classroom and training areas as well as a range of healthcare specialists.
Associate Professor Allan said the new facility would in 2020 finally give Queensland the right mix of mental health facilities.
“I think our modelling suggests that on ‘a needs basis’ we are about right in terms of beds,” he said.
Associate Professor Allan said there was a new child and adolescent mental health facility in north Queensland and 'step-up and step-down' youth mental health facilities in north and south Brisbane.
He said more than 100 young people with a range of mental health abilities – and some parents – were involved in designing the new facility at the Prince Charles Hospital.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk acknowledged work at the centre had taken a long time to begin.
“This is an incredibly proud day for me as premier because after years of consultation and planning and working in with young people and the consumer groups, today works gets under way,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“This $27 million mental health facility will change children’s lives.
“Not only will it change people’s lives, but it will save people’ lives.”
Three former patients at the Barrett Adolescent Centre took their own lives in the months after the Barrett Centre was closed.
An inquest into those three deaths in 2014 is now under way.
On Monday, evidence was heard in Queensland’s Coroner’s Court of the emotional state of 18-year-old William Fowell, who died in June 2014 about six months after the Barrett Adolescent Centre was closed.
The young man had an intellectual disability, anxiety, epilepsy and cerebral palsy and had been living at the Barrett Adolescent Centre since August 28, 2012.
His inquest would examine the transition arrangements that were in place and also Mr Fowell's emotional state in the lead-up to the move in January 2014.
Mr Fowell’s inquest will run for five days.
Ms Palasazczuk said she understood the inquest would be hard for some families.
“I know people cannot forget the past, but this is a new dawn, this is a new way we are going to help young people that go through very hard time,” she said.
The announcement was previously made in state Parliament in October 2018.
Fomer Barrett Centre resident and now mental health services consumer advocate Katherine Moodie said the rooms had ducted air-conditioning and there were good communal spaces.
She said the education facilities at the mental health centre would be best received by the young people.
